Alexa Levesque
EDC 102H
9/19/12
Early School Experience
My years in elementary school were some of the most important in my educational life. I went to an extremely small Catholic School in West Warwick, Rhode Island from pre-school through eighth grade. During these years, I attended school with the same basic group of kids, many of whom I still consider to be some of my best friends today. Having such a small class, many of the students fit into some sort of stereotype that they were expected to fill for the 10 years that we were together.
I, for example, was expected to get the best grades out of my group of friends and compete with a few other girls who were also at the top of our class. Since other people expected this of me, it made it a lot easier for me to expect high grades from myself. With only about 25 students at any one time, it was not too difficult to know who had the highest score and who could have definitely studied harder. Everyone knew that there were about three of us who had an unspoken competition to do the best on every test or project and this was one thing that shaped my early education.
This type of friendly race kept all of us working hard and fast to try and edge out the others. Our competition went from as early as I can remember right until we graduated eighth grade with no clear “winner” in sight. Though in the end who won was not that significant, I would argue that it kept me going at times when I did not always feel like studying as hard as I knew I could.
In high school, since there were many more students to keep track of, there wasn’t the same type of competition, and when there was it was not nearly as friendly. I can genuinely say that I missed that aspect of elementary and middle school. Even to this day, though I rarely see the two girls that I usually competed with, we still check in with each other and have taken a lot of the same courses in high school even though we went to schools 30 miles away, we still held on to our roots and kept our competition in mind throughout the years.
Along with competition, my elementary school was the setting of some of my greatest memories; I was lucky in the fact that I had a lot of friends through the years, and many of them I would still consider to be the best friends that I ever had. My school also allowed for a lot of creativity and freedom, especially in the middle school level. I still remember vividly, my 7th grade social studies teacher Mrs. Breault and the tyranny project that we were apart of where we had restrictions, spies and fees to understand tyranny in the 13 colonies. These types of projects have stayed with me, and I often think about how they shaped my education, and how I hope that my students will have a similar feeling after they leave my class.
We were allowed to do many of these things because we were a private school, with little government regulation. Some of my best memories were participating in school plays, performing scenes from poems, and quickly glancing at Jenna and Katey’s grades to compare. With my early schooling, I was given the opportunity to explore my creativity and challenge myself along with the other students who all strove to succeed.
EDC 102H
9/19/12
Early School Experience
My years in elementary school were some of the most important in my educational life. I went to an extremely small Catholic School in West Warwick, Rhode Island from pre-school through eighth grade. During these years, I attended school with the same basic group of kids, many of whom I still consider to be some of my best friends today. Having such a small class, many of the students fit into some sort of stereotype that they were expected to fill for the 10 years that we were together.
I, for example, was expected to get the best grades out of my group of friends and compete with a few other girls who were also at the top of our class. Since other people expected this of me, it made it a lot easier for me to expect high grades from myself. With only about 25 students at any one time, it was not too difficult to know who had the highest score and who could have definitely studied harder. Everyone knew that there were about three of us who had an unspoken competition to do the best on every test or project and this was one thing that shaped my early education.
This type of friendly race kept all of us working hard and fast to try and edge out the others. Our competition went from as early as I can remember right until we graduated eighth grade with no clear “winner” in sight. Though in the end who won was not that significant, I would argue that it kept me going at times when I did not always feel like studying as hard as I knew I could.
In high school, since there were many more students to keep track of, there wasn’t the same type of competition, and when there was it was not nearly as friendly. I can genuinely say that I missed that aspect of elementary and middle school. Even to this day, though I rarely see the two girls that I usually competed with, we still check in with each other and have taken a lot of the same courses in high school even though we went to schools 30 miles away, we still held on to our roots and kept our competition in mind throughout the years.
Along with competition, my elementary school was the setting of some of my greatest memories; I was lucky in the fact that I had a lot of friends through the years, and many of them I would still consider to be the best friends that I ever had. My school also allowed for a lot of creativity and freedom, especially in the middle school level. I still remember vividly, my 7th grade social studies teacher Mrs. Breault and the tyranny project that we were apart of where we had restrictions, spies and fees to understand tyranny in the 13 colonies. These types of projects have stayed with me, and I often think about how they shaped my education, and how I hope that my students will have a similar feeling after they leave my class.
We were allowed to do many of these things because we were a private school, with little government regulation. Some of my best memories were participating in school plays, performing scenes from poems, and quickly glancing at Jenna and Katey’s grades to compare. With my early schooling, I was given the opportunity to explore my creativity and challenge myself along with the other students who all strove to succeed.